Ludmilla Harkavitch
Name: Ludmilla Anastasia Harkavitch (A.K.A. “Milli”) Race: Revenant (Human) Class: Rogue (Thief) Alignment: Good Deity: The Raven Queen Age: Hometown: Ivograd Background Early Life The only child of Issur and Elena Harkavitch, Ludmilla was born in the sprawling Romanova kappel, one of the great citadel houses that dominate the Bulgor city of Ivograd. A fiercely independent child, her youth was marred by the tragic loss of her mother at age eight, which cast her tiny family into shadow. Family is everything in Ivograd: those that make their homes within the great kappels know that the power and influence of their family does more then guard the walls and fill the great tables. Though the officers of the Prince enforce the laws of the city, that enforcement usually takes the place of redress between the houses. Those who have no house of their own may not be oppressed by the major houses, but they know that it is a far better thing to be swept along with the current of one of those great whales then to fight the tide by themselves. Issur Harkavitch's entry into the House of Romanova came through his marriage to a daughter of the great house, and so her death cast his position into uncertainty. It came to pass, therefore, that even in his sorrow, Issur had to fight to keep his place as a useful contributor to the house with little concern to give his grieving daughter. Ludmilla learned to bury her sadness, and channel her loneliness into drive. She would spend endless hours searching out the hidden corners of the kappel, learning to be neither seen nor heard, a careful ghost in a cold, adult world. In time her father would escape his own grief and find his daughter, but she would carry lessons with her for the rest of her life. How to be unseen, how to be bold when frightened, how to stand alone, and that even the good and just will sometimes disappoint. The rift between father and daughter would heal in time, but Ludmilla would forever after haunt the lonely places of the kappel: as she grew into a young woman her talent for finding her way to rooftops would not go unnoticed. In the city of Ivograd, the eye that can go unnoticed is a valuable thing indeed. Thus she came to the attention of the patriarch, Piotr Romanova, who would see to enriching her education in more practical matters. Through this happy arraignment the fortunes of her father were elevated, but more importantly, while idling one sultry summer evening on the gabled roof of the grand house, Ludmilla would meet her dearest friend, Anya Romaova. Clever Anya, little Anya, the only one for whom Ludmilla would be “Lili” these “cousins” (in address at least, for the lineage is most complicated) would be inseparable in Anya's time away from developing her talents at the Oprichnina. Ludmilla, raven haired and quick of limb and eye, could be seen clambering over the gables and balconies of the kappel with her clever cousin in tow, and the house archivists would grow used to the sight of a sheepish Ludmilla trailing behind her flaxen haired cousin, puffing beneath a pile of books. When Anya entered the threshold of womanhood, it was Ludmilla alone that Anya would share her great secret with. It was Ludmilla who went with Anya to confront Anya's mother, the matron of the Romanova house, and it was Ludmilla who would most concisely end the argument between weeping daughter and scornful mother by breaking the matron's nose. On the Road Certain questions were raised about the relationship between Piotr and his wife, as the punishment for Ludmilla's actions was a striping with a willow branch (which she bore without complaint) and... to travel with her father while Anya was away at her studies. Traveling, that is, on her father's new and quite lucrative trading circuit. For two years this would be the pattern of Ludmilla's life: long months on the road, learning the subtleties of her own trade and her father's (more then a few who tried to cheat the house would find their purses lighter after he caravans left town). Then time in Ivograd: hours by the fires in the great kitchens and the shadowy alleys with the games played with dice and cards and bones, and simply spending time with her cousin. The two grew different, but never grew apart, a relationship secretly encouraged by the Patriarch. He would remark, far out of earshot of either, that Ludmilla was good without being nice, while Anya was kind without being good; while Anya was not wicked and Ludmilla was not cruel, he hoped the two would blend their temperaments. Whatever hopes anyone maintained would be dashed on the final trip the Harkavitchs' would take before the winter snows closed the passes to the south through the foothills. A Lady's Favor By and by life, such as it could be called, was good for Ludmilla. Agreeable enough companions, fulfilling and profitable work, and the opportunity to indulge her thirst and feed the gnawing need that filled her. But even as she enjoyed their common good fortune, she could not avoid the feeling that something was amiss... or rather, more amiss then before. Since awakening in the well, Ludmila had grown used to a new state of things. To move, to think but not to feel; whether the cold of the snow or the rain on her face, she had learned what it was to touch but not feel. To drink without slacking her thirst, to eat without blunting the hunger and all the pleasurable company that would not satisfy, this was her existence and she accepted it... because she had to. But ever since the group's encounter with the cultists in the Badlands, since traveling into the depths of the strange, Ludmilla had begun to feel... off. To be feeling anything at all, much less the creeping unease, was a disturbing change. Like a mote always in the corner of her eye, a feeling gradually took shape, an uneasy awareness of a new wrongness of body. As the companions traveled the wastes Ludmilla fed on what little life could be found: the meanest and most meager of wildlife punctuated by violent gorges on corrupted and degenerate humanoids. And ever the feeling grew, until one night after her turn at watch, she threw herself into her bedroll to rest and hide from the dawn, limbs and mind heavy to bursting with a terrible sensation of wrongness. On that cold ground in that empty place, for the first time in years, she dreamed. A vast barrenness opened before her, a grey horizon where sky and earth were scarce discernable, and all about her a great ruin, not a blasted, debased thing like the badlands, but a place heavy with time and crumbling with age. Without words she knew that in her mind's eye she saw the moors of the Shadowfell all around her. Though she thought herself alone, presently she became aware of a presence. A speck along the horizon, a deeper darkness amidst the gloom, and in the manner of dreams it grew and resolved as if approaching at great speed. In that dreaming speed a woman soon stood before Ludmilla; tall, cold and beautiful and terrible as a winter's day, a white lady clad in flowing robes of inky black, but within her eyes, deep within, was such kindness. That welcoming rest that lies at the end of the longest journey, the release from pain and care and weariness, all that lurked just beyond the fearful shadow of those eyes. Ludmilla knew without words that she was within the presence of the Raven Queen. The lady beckoned, and where she beckoned there was a bench of stone and they sat upon it. “Are you weary my child, you who have come so far?” Such kindness in her voice, Ludmilla cast down her eyes to the feathered hem of the Lady's gown. “No my Lady.” Answered Ludmilla, for the weariness had left her body. “Are you hungry my child, or do you thirst?” She asked, and Ludmilla replied “No,” for she felt estranged from the wants of the body. “Are you angry my child?” Long moments passed, a second, an hour, a century, in such a place who can tell. “Yes,” the mortal replied, and she looked full in the face of her questioner, “yes I am.” The lady took up her hand and brushed back the hair from Ludmilla's face, her hand strong as iron but light as winter's first snow. “Good.” She rested her hand upon the girl's shoulder. “Good.” As the girl and the goddess looked at each other, Ludmilla felt, truly felt, for the first time in so very long. She felt her anger, her loss, her grief, and above all others her loneliness. And for that endless, timeless moment, she wept a child's tears to be so alone. The lady drew the girl to her breast like a mother embraces her child. “So strong my little one, so very strong. You have an iron spirit to have endured so much. Triple tragedy and cursed unlife, unfair, unearned, unlooked for, yet you have endured. Be strong my little one, for you have much work yet to do.” She gathered Ludmilla's hands in her own and drew them up. With aching tenderness she clasped them to her lips and left feather light kisses on the girl's fingertips. “You shall bear the mark of me into the world, a small burden and a mighty gift.” A terrible warmth, an ache to the bones, spread through Lumilla and she clasped her hands to her chest, curling her whole body up, even as the Lady drew her to her breast. As the great black folds of the lady's cloak enveloped her in warm, inky black darkness, Ludmilla heard the rustle of feathers even as consciousness fled her, but before she slipped from thought and mind she heard one last time the voice of the Lady. She thought she spoke of purpose, of a mighty destiny, but those words fled from her memory as dreams flee the dawn. With a gasp that turned into a long, rattling breath, Ludmilla woke within her bedroll upon the earth. The fabric was like a shroud on her, tight about her by restless motions in her sleep, and she sat up and pushed her way free of it. She thought she heard a start, perhaps a greeting, perhaps a warning, for as the cloth fell away she blinked and beheld the dawn. Her breath caught to see the pinks and blues of the dawn, and she realized that her breath was breath again. She gulped the air greedily, and heard the noise of blood rushing through her veins, that tiny pulse that is imperceptible save to those that have learned to live without it. In the chill of the dawn air she saw her breath in the air, and she realized that the burdens were lifted. The cursed thirst was gone, the growing feeling of wrongness, the numbness; all of them gone, burned away by the Lady's gift. She pressed her palms to her eyes, overwhelmed, and felt the grittiness of her hair on her fingertips. But something more... she drew her hands away and looked at them, and laughed. Softly at first, but gradually a mirth that shook her body and left her smiling. Her skin had turned white and smooth as marble, save for her hands. A few inches below the elbow, the skin gave way to smooth, dark, pebbly scales that covered her hands and in turn ended in fingers that seemed longer and thinner even then they had been before, for now they ended in thick black talons. “I guess she was a bit literal about that mark thing...” she said to herself. In due time, after being satisfied they were in no danger of being eaten, her companions would point out that her eyes had become glossy black orbs, relieved only by pinpricks of burning light deep within them. Observations that would prompt a remark of “of course they have, because why not?” But that would come in due time. As she sat in half in her bedroll, looking at the sunrise over that blasted place with new eyes and feeling the ground with new flesh, she could only make one remark. “I feel hungry and I feel cold... and it's fantastic!”